Rebooting the Universe
by greenfairy13
Summary: The Doctor and Donna land at Stormcage. Crack!


"Uhhhhhhhhhhh," the curly-haired, middled aged man lets out an exasperated, annoyed groan as he lets himself fall backwards on the uncomfortable makeshift bed in River Song's prison cell.

"My dear Brother!" she greets him in a bored voice. "I take it you still didn't get anywhere close Rose Tyler's knickers?" River asks, grinning smugly and arching an eyebrow at the man on her bed.

"Nooooooooo!" the man whines, scooting his hand through his wiry hair. It's still full but starts getting grey at the temples and recently, he started having trouble with his weight too. Propping himself up on his arms, he gives River an expectant look. "And what about you? Did you finally find out if he's well equipped?"

Now it's her turn to sigh, "I'm having a hard time seducing this one."

"He obviously doesn't," the man smirks, straightening out his boring grey suit and leaning against the headboard.

"You're one to talk," she scoffs, "let me recapitulate: you paid Madame de Pompadour to seduce him, locked her up in a parallel dimension, manipulated her dimension-cannon project and still! No success!"

Making an annoyed sound he leans forward to grab River's diary. "Where in his time-line are you planning to go next?"

"Dunno," she says slightly defeated and shrugs. "I thought he would crack after the library – when I turned up being alive but well...he just kept distrusting me."

At that the man chuckles, "I wouldn't trust you either,"

"Quite right, too." She barks out with laughter and soon, he chimes into the mocking sound. Clutching his stomach and wiping his eyes, he falls back on the bad.

"At least you got him to kiss you," River's brother pouts.

"Yeah," she crows triumphantly. "You tried kissing her, didn't you? How did it work out? Did she punch you?"

"Much worse – she _pitied _me." He winces at the memory. "But you aren't doing any better," he admonishes, "_blackmailing _him into marriage – River, River, tzk, tzk, tzk."

"At least he kissed me," she argues, rolling her eyes and letting out a little huff.

"Yeah, well," he licks his lips, "for him, it was either mingling his breath with yours, or quitting to breathe at all."

"I can tell he enjoyed it – a bit," she insists stubbornly.

"A bit!" he mocks.

"I think we have to up the ante," River suggests, arching a challenging eyebrow at his brother. "Still got the big red reset pen?"

"Course," he replies excitedly. "Are you suggesting...?"

"Rebooting the universe again?" River grins self-confidently. "Love's all about timing. Trust me, dearest brother, once we've figured out where we to meet them in their time-line, they'll fall hard for us."

"Maybe we should go to a point before these two meet?" the man suggests, quirking an eyebrow and River swats his arm playfully.

"I've already tried," she confesses crestfallenly. "She's the only one to make him snap out of his haze after the war– doesn't even look at me. And believe me," she snorts, "I've tried my highest heels and my most daring dress – didn't even bat an eye."

"I tried my luck when that douche Jimmy Stone ran off with her money," he says, rolling his eyes. "She called me an old, creepy, lecherous man – I only wanted to help!"

"Help?" River snorts. "You shoved Jimmy in her way to consolidate her after he'd be done with her. And I bet your hands up her skirt didn't help matters either," she adds waggling her eyebrows.

"She should be over the moon for me!" he suddenly bursts out. "I have a TARDIS Type 57, I got great hair, imagination and I truly control time with my universe rebooting pen!"

"Imagination?" River mocks. "Imagination?! Whenever something goes wrong, you reboot the universe. Seriously, how many times can one reboot the universe?"

"Are you giving up?" he asks his sister incredulously.

"No. Just...," River shrugs and trails off.

"You have another idea?" he asks daringly.

"I..." her sentence is lost as they both freeze. A well-known wheezing, whooshing sound fills the air. Firmly rooted to the spot, they exchange terrified glances.

"I thought you weren't expecting him?" he whispers.

"I wasn't!" River snaps back indignantly. "Quick! Hide, he'll recognise you!" she half whispers, half shouts while shoving him into her locker.

"A prison?" a woman's voice asks with a huff. "I'm telling you, your blondie is coming back and instead of looking for her, you're taking me to a prison?!

"Donna, please. The TARDIS picked up a possibly apocalyptic distortion in time – I have to check it out," the Doctor argues helplessly as he jogs through Stormcage's corridors, nearly dripping over his long coat in his haste to find out the origin of the distortion and more importantly, to leave the place again.

"Oh don't give me that, Martian! You just got NO control over your ship! You say you can fly her but no we're stuck here cause your ship decided to land!" Donna argues in frustration.

"She's sentient," the Doctor snaps back.

"She's trying to kill us recently!" Donna replies. "Don't argue, space-boy. There was nothing you could have done on Midnight, still she landed us there and your co-passengers nearly dropped you out mid-flight!"

"Donna," he says warningly, "she's trying to tell me something and as long as I don't get the message, we're not going anywhere."

"I'm just trying to say: get a grip on your ship! Oh!" Donna stops still in her tracks in front of a prison cell and stares wide-eyed inside.

"What is it?" the Doctor asks, looking up from the readings of his sonic. "River?!" he gasps in surprise.

"Hello sweetie," River purrs in what she hopes is a seductive way while running her hand along her hip. The Doctor shudders at her bold and fast forward sexual offer.

"Uhm," he gulps. "Nice to see you again," he adds as he starts looking around the room. Donna peers inside over his shoulder. Her glance settles on the half-closed locker and ever so subtly, she pinches the unsettled Time Lord in front of her. Catching up, he sonics the prison cell open, steps inside and rips the locker-door open.

River's brother, crouched inside the tiny space, tumbles outside and the Doctor rises his sonic like a wand while trying to cover Donna with his body. A tiny pen clatters loudly to the floor.

"Sweetie!" River squeaks in a high-pitched voice. "It's not how it looks like." But the Doctor decides to ignore her entirely.

"The Moffat," he states darkly, eyes guarded.

"Doctor!" the other man states in false joviality. "It's been a while."

"Still trying to cause havoc?" the Doctor asks cautiously.

"No, no...just..ehm...passing by," he answers, straightening out his grey suit.

"So this universe rebooting device that my TARDIS caused to land here does not happen to be yours?" he demands, picking up the Moffat's pen.

"Never seen it before," he lies badly.

"Uhu," is everything the Doctor answers as he runs his sonic over the pen. Tongue curled behind his teeth, but else completely calm, he analyses the readings. When he's done, his face freezes into a stony mask and his body goes rigid.

"Doctor, what is it?" Donna wants to know. "Is it bad?"

Expression breaking into a wide grin that doesn't reach his eyes he answers, "no". Dropping the Moffat's pen onto the floor, he stomps on it and the device breaks. Just for good measure, the Doctor repeats the movement a couple of times and Donna thinks if he wouldn't have something to stomp on, he'd probably explode from rage. "Donna. TARDIS. NOW!" he commands and she doesn't dare to disobey.

About twenty minutes later, the Doctor returns to the TARDIS, still completely calm and unreadable.

"What happened?"

"Nothing," he replies cheerfully. "If you don't mind, we gonna make a trip to parallel planet Earth and pick up Rose."

"I thought trans-universal travel is impossible," Donna asks hesitantly.

"Not anymore!" he crows triumphantly. "The Moffat's pen, the device I stomped on? That's what made it impossible."

Donna gulps. "Why would he do that?"

"Oh...all the wrong reasons," the Time Lord replies jovially. "He had a crush on Rose so he decided to separate her from me."

At that statement Donna shudders in fear for the other man. "What happened to him?" she whispers fearfully.

"Nothing bad, nothing bad," the Doctor reassures her. "I took the Time Lord essence from him and locked him up in a parallel world. He's now called Steven Moffat and works as an author for television plays. River now goes by the name of Elizabeth and is an actress. Nothing to worry, Donna. Chop, chop! Rose is waiting!" he grins happily, pulling various levers and hitting several buttons frantically.

The Doctor manages to land the very moment his younger version's image fades from Rose's view on the hideous beach in Norway, the very moment the most important sentence is left unsaid.

Stepping outside the time-ship, the Doctor starts running towards Rose and catching her around the waist, he finally tells her, "Rose Tyler, I love you."


End file.
